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Notes
The six copies of Jurgen examined are those listed by Matthew J. Bruccoli, James Branch Cabell: A Bibliography (Charlottesville, 1957), pp. 32-33. Another book using this scheme of imposition is Ellen Glasgow's The Wheel of Life, Doubleday, Page, 1906.
Exceptions to this rule appear to be the first and seventeenth quires in which the second and third leaves seem to have smooth edges at the sides. I assume that the knife cut cleaner than usual on these quires since no other explanation will account for the other features of the quires. Imposition in formes of 128 pages, which looks like a plausible explanation, is out of the question because it will not even explain the exceptions. The last quire of Jurgen is an exception to all the rules because it is made up of only four leaves; its imposition is not considered in this note.
Irregularly spaced indentations along the side edge of leaf five correspond exactly in position to projections along the side edge of leaf six, and vice versa.
There are a few exceptions to 5 and 7. The explanation adopted to cover them is stated in note 2.
This scheme is described by Theodore L. De Vinne, Book Composition, ed. J. W. Bothwell (1918), pp. 159-160. For evidence that the leading edge of this kind of forme was the long edge, see my "A Note on Half-Sheet Imposition in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Books," Gutenberg Jahrbuch, forthcoming 1962.
Imposition in formes of sixty-four pages could not have produced this alternation. It would, instead, have produced four quires, two of which would have shown no difference in the length of leaves. Imposition in sixteen-page formes could not have produced alternation at all.
The seven copies checked are those listed in Bruccoli, pp. 40-41. Another book whose quires were imposed in this scheme is Frank Swinnerton's R. L. Stevenson, George H. Doran, 1923.
There are a few exceptions to his rule. Since they cannot be explained as part of a scheme other than the one suggested, they are not considered significant. The initial quire of the book is a four-leaf fold and is, therefore, an exception to all the rules. Its imposition is not considered in this note.
It should be noted that the quires cannot be explained as the result of imposing four outer sub-formes together in the same forme and perfecting with the four inner sub-formes in another forme. This would have produced quires 5, 9, 13, etc., with smooth machined edges at the sides of the last four leaves. A book which was printed by this method is Cabell's The King Was in His Counting House, Farrar & Rinehart, 1938.
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